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McDermott Introduces the "Carlos Lazo Amendment"
House of Representatives - June 15, 2005

I rise to offer an amendment to the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Appropriations bill. I do so in the name of freedom and justice for all Americans.

Watch this floor speech [Click here to get Windows Media Player]

I call it the Carlos Lazo amendment, named for a brave U.S. soldier from Seattle who has been denied his right and freedom to visit his children in Cuba because of onerous new travel restrictions imposed by this administration.

Sergeant Lazo is a medic in a combat unit that served for a year in Fallujah, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq. He is a shining example of everything positive about America and about the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces.

But Carlos Lazo has been victimized by the administration's policy which has gone tilt. Carlos is caught up in the latest ploy by the United States Government to topple Castro. This time the administration is banking on restricting travel to overthrow the Castro government.

The greatest impact from this new policy is that Sergeant Carlos Lazo cannot visit his children in Cuba. One man desires only to be a father on Father's Day.

This is a man who risked his life in defense of America, a man who risked his life to reach America on a raft, a man who wants only to see and hug his children, a man in uniform defending America even as America denies his freedoms.

Last June, Carlos tried to visit his children in Cuba before the stringent new travel restrictions were put into effect. He was on leave from Iraq and went to Miami to board a charter flight to Cuba, but he was turned away because flights were flying empty to Cuba.

There he stood in his uniform, having just come back from the combat zone. He stood in an airport with a ticket in his hand, barred from a chance to visit his children, denied the most basic freedom in this country.

Carlos returned to the war zone in Iraq without seeing his children. That is the way it will stay unless the government intercedes.

Current law allows Americans to visit a family in Cuba only once every 3 years. No exceptions are made for soldiers serving abroad, families with medical emergencies, or other hardship cases.

As it stands now, Carlos can do nothing except wait for an arbitrary deadline to expire. It will take another year before he can go to Cuba. He is a naturalized American father who has been caught up in a national obsession to overthrow Castro. Decade after decade, plot after plot, the facts remain the same.

The policy, or the plot, call it what you will, the new travel restrictions inflict pain and suffering on an American, not Castro. Carlos is a person, not a political pawn, a soldier who defended his country and asks only for his country to defend his freedom.

He came to America on a raft in the 1990s. Since then he has made a new home and a new life. He has given back to his country and served with distinction. He is a patriot.

The least we can do is allow Carlos to visit his children in Cuba. Allowing him to travel to Cuba would say much more about freedom and opportunity in America than any new administration policy.

You want to hurt Castro, send Carlos to see his children. His freedom, like any American, to travel freely and speak freely and act freely will say more about what America stands for than all the rhetoric and rules the administration could ever implement.

The Department of Treasury oversees the travel ban. So far they have refused to grant him any kind of waiver. It will take us to cut through that.

Let Carlos be reunited with his children in Cuba in time for Father's Day. There is room in the heartland of America to have a heart.

I urge the passage of this amendment.